March organisers claim 200,000

Thursday 20 November 2003 14.13 EST
First published on Thursday 20 November 2003 14.13 EST

Tens of thousands of protesters today converged in central London to demonstrate against US president George Bush.

The Stop the War Coalition, the organisers of the march and a Trafalgar Square rally, said it was the UK's biggest ever weekday demonstration and put the numbers attending at over 200,000.

Scotland Yard said it had estimated participants at 70,000.

The protest began with a march through central London. Slightly delayed from its 2.30pm start time, it moved swiftly through the West End and South Bank before crossing Westminster Bridge, past parliament and Whitehall, and then into Trafalgar Square.

Noisy but well-disciplined, the protesters carried banners with the single word "Bush" printed above a splatter of blood, blew whistles and chanted "George Bush, terrorist".

Some had customised the placards or brought their own. One read: "Get the hint, go home." Others waved Palestinian flags.

Shortly after 5.30pm demonstrators in Trafalgar Square pulled down a papier-mache effigy of Mr Bush with Tony Blair in his pocket in an attempt to re-enact the iconic moment on April 9 when US soldiers and Iraqi civilians brought down a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

The Blur frontman Damon Albarn, at the front of the march, told the Press Association that it was a "smart march for smart people".

"My reason is the same as those taken by people collectively today ... and Bush's visit is an opportunity to re-express what they feel," he said.

Bill Hoyes, 72, from Stevenage, said he had come along to call for greater involvement by the UN in Iraq.

"I'm opposed to Bush and Blair fighting an aggressive war and invading a country that could not defend itself."

The Metropolitan police's deputy assistant commissioner, Andy Trotter, said that the conduct of the march was good tempered and there had been no particular problems.

A total of 5,123 officers policed the route as part of one of the largest ever security operations in Britain.